In a recent social media post, director Mohan G pointed out how the re-release of Mankatha affected the performance of his latest film, Draupathi 2. On whether he agrees to this, Vignesh Karthick, who saw the release of his Hot Spot 2 Much on the same day, gives us a “yes and no” answer. “Hot Spot 2 Much is currently trending on ticket booking apps, and we are happy with its performance, but the Mankatha re-release did affect us. Our film is performing well, but if we hadn’t had to compete with Mankatha, it might have performed better. But then you always have to compete with some film. For example, Nitham Oru Vaanam is an amazing film, but it was overshadowed by Love Today, which came out on the same day, and it wasn’t attached to a big star at the time,” says the director.

While Vignesh Karthick spoke about being happy with his film’s performance, he pointed out variables like the surge in ticket sales and reviews. But what are some other ways filmmakers get to know the audience’s thoughts? “I get a lot of direct messages on social media. For this film, I got a lot of appreciation and some harsh words too,” he laughs. One of the most interesting responses he got was when someone revealed how they liked the first Hot Spot but still had more fun with the second film. He adds, “They said the first film felt too preachy, so I tried to tone it down here. The second film had a lot of monologues, but I didn’t get the same criticism here because each monologue was handled with a different tone. MS Bhaskar sir’s monologue was intense, but the second monologue, with Thambi Ramaiah sir, was handled humorously. People cheered and clapped for his portions.” But the director agrees with the criticism that he might have gone overboard with the number of monologues. “I think I could have reduced the number of monologues in the film, but people didn’t point it out as a major drawback. Which goes on to strengthen my belief that, as far as films are concerned, you can do whatever you want as long as you make it entertaining,” says Vignesh.

Hot Spot 2 Much is a hyperlink social drama that follows a director narrating three different stories to a producer, with each story being a scathing critique of pertinent social issues. The first story takes on the toxic fanboy culture surrounding Tamil cinema. On why we rarely see this issue being discussed by people inside the film industry or even in films, pat comes the reply, “Because everybody wants to make a film with the big stars.” And you don’t? “There is more to life than chasing after stars. I am happy to make my kind of films and not make them specifically to suit any star.” Vignesh expressed more surprise at what the industry insiders had to say about his commentary on star worship. “They asked how I can be a part of the film industry and still criticise fan culture. I thought it was fair to throw light on the toxic side of fan culture, to which, to my utter surprise, the reply I got was, ‘How do we do our business if we don’t have such fans?’ I didn’t even want to argue against such a selfish outlook.” The director then adds on a cautiously optimistic note, “I think this will be the last generation to see crazy fan worship.”

The original Hot Spot saw the protagonist (played by Vignesh Karthick himself) narrating four different stories to the producer (and to the audience). The sequel, which has Priya Bhavani Shankar narrating to the same producer this time, has only three stories. Vignesh explains, “We shot four stories for the sequel as well, but it ran for almost 35 minutes, so we had to cut it down. If I make a third film, we will include that in there.” The director has already hinted at a third film towards the end of Hot Spot 2 Much. While he admits to not having written any scripts for the third film yet, Vignesh Karthick shares some of the topics he would like to tackle next. “I want to talk about social media fanaticism and the bizarre world of influencer culture. Since I also spoke about fan culture in this film, I also wanted to explore how some journalists feed the fan worship. Some guy greets an actor on the road, and he immediately gets interviewed. I want to know what goes through an interviewer's mind during those times,” concludes Vignesh Karthick.